I have heard there isn’t much use in talking about Zen. So I'll talk about our time woodworking at Chozen-ji.
Teachers, priests, monks, and students gathered at the temple on a Sunday afternoon, in the back of a valley.
The students were orientated on Chozen Ji's history and the temple's ground rules. Like the schedule. And discouragement from things like distracting chatter or wearing shorts on the grounds. We also shared the program's thesis: to explore the shared culture between Buddhism and Japanese carpentry.
As Yoshiaki Nakamura, Jon Stollenmeyer’s first boss had suggested to me 7 years ago, if you want to understand Japanese carpentry, you have to understand buddhism. So, we were here to try the tiniest bit of zen training, while building a small frame. None of us knew what to expect.
But, even diluted to 10% of the formality that monks experience, the strength of the zen side of the program took us all by surprise. In the middle of the first night, one person emailed us to say they were quitting and departed before the first light.
